Lullaby and I both bent to look at what she’d found. An empty beveled groove scarred the stone platform, long and straight and narrow. It looked like—
“A sword?” Skepticism and excitement warred within me. “One of the other Relics?”
Lullaby ripped off the remaining hem of her dress and began clearing great swathes of grime from the dais. Oleander and I both joined in, until the massive stone platform was cleared. Lullaby was the first to look up, her expression elated.
“Mirage, I found where your Relic goes!”
I leaned close. Yes—I’d know that shape anywhere. I’d worn it on my chest since I was a child.
“I found something too,” Oleander added, disappointment chasing excitement across her face. “What did you say Bastien’s Relic was supposed to be?”
“A crown.”
“This doesn’t look much like a crown to me. At least, not a crown I’ve ever wanted to wear.”
She was right—the shape was narrow and pointed, too small for a head. I glided my hands across the table until I found a fourth shape carved into the rock. My pulse leapt, then plummeted as my fingers explored the divot. It was nothing more than a plain circle—one half of a small sphere.
“Mine’s just a circle.” I looked at the other girls. “Could this be it? Four Relics for four heirs?”
“You said Dowser told you each of Meridian’s children represented a quality.” Oleander stared around the dais, eyes narrow. She pointed to the sword, then the sunburst. “The sword represented physical strength. The ambric sunburst was passions of the heart. If mine is, in fact, a crown, that stood for Bastien Sabourin’s intellect.”
“Hand, Heart, and Head,” Lullaby said.
Oleander nodded. “Which leaves—”
“Soul,”I supplied. “But Dowser didn’t know what that was supposed to mean. It’s just a circle. It could be anything.”
“What does Severine have to say about it?”
“How should I know?”
“Please.” Oleander rolled perfectly lined eyes. “If I’d found my evil sister’s personal diary, I wouldn’t let it out of my sight.”
Reluctantly, I drew Severine’s journal out of my pocket, clutching the slim volume between sweaty palms. Oleander snatched it out of my hands and flipped toward the middle, where I’d found the passage about the Oubliettes.
“Here—this is just after Seneca gives her his Relic as a gift.” She read out loud.“I have found their place, but they cannot stay. So I will keep them with me a little longer. Still, I am glad I finally found it. It reminds me why I must never play F’s game—not because my life would be forfeit, but because I know S’s would be.”
A chilly memory of a forgotten nightmare laddered my spine.
“You’re right—she was here,” I said, with a certainty I didn’t understand. “She had two Relics—Seneca’s after he gave it to her, and the one she had always had, as a Sabourin dauphine.”
“What?” Oleander frowned. “That’s not right—Sylvain had one as emperor. Seneca had one as Sun Heir. Why would Severine have a third?”
“Don’t you see?” I gazed up at the sunburst blazing nothing but darkness into this world. “They’ve kept playing—fighting—whatever you want to call it. The Ordeals of the Sun Heir. My family has been doing this in secret for a thousand tides—an Ordeal for every generation.”
The silence after my words was louder than my heartbeat.
“How do you know?” Lullaby asked.
“Think about it—the twisted lines of succession, all the mysterious deaths and banishments and scandals. They haven’t been going by primogeniture or birthright—the Sabourin line is secretly decided by an archaic, half-mythic contest passed down for a thousand tides. Except—” A shadow of understanding lurked at the edge of my mind. “Except Severine didn’t want to play. Because she knew Seneca wouldn’t survive. So she tried to stop the Ordeals before they began.”
“By stealing all four Relics before Sylvain had the chance to die and bequeath his Relic to one of your many half-blood siblings,” Oleander added slowly. “But that’s still only three Relics. What—andwhere—is the fourth?”
For an echoing moment, we all digested silence.
“What happens if you put your sunburst here, in this marking in the dais?” Lullaby asked
I hesitated. “What if I put my Relic in and can’t take it out again?”
